Cyborg Cook: Domestic Cooking in the Digital Age

• Applicant: Katharina Graf, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 452339143

In the near future, domestic kitchens may either not be needed anymore, since drones will deliver our meals, or become high-tech status symbols unfit for daily cooking. While smart kitchen appliances such as processors may offer a choice of recipes and prepare food for busy cooks, intelligent fridges will automatically replenish their stock through online shopping. Whatever the futuristic image, so-called smart technology is invariably depicted as coming to the rescue of domestic cooks too busy or inexperienced to cook. Anthropology is suspicious of such one-directional visions of technological impact on everyday life and ideally positioned to explore the entanglements of cultural, economic and political dimensions in increasingly digitally mediated human-machine interaction.Since the onset of industrialisation, science and technology have promised to help cooks in the guise of so-called smart machines. Yet, in spite of real or imagined technological progress rendering hands-on cooking obsolete, the domestic cook is far from disappearing, and people, especially mothers, still do much of the everyday cooking the world over. At the same time, compared to a burgeoning field of food research in other highly industrialised contexts, empirical food studies of Germany are still relatively scarce. This is surprising since Germany has been at the forefront of scientific and technological development in food for more than a century, and is reputed globally for producing a vast range of household appliances that change cooking across the world. To fill these gaps, this project proposes to study how contemporary cooks cook in what could be called the digital age: a time that is marked – but not necessarily determined – by a growing presence of digital technologies, virtual connectivity and a perceived acceleration of life. It asks 1) What characterises cooking in Germany in the digital age? 2) What is smart about ‘smart’ technologies and how do cooks engage with these as they cook? 3) How is the wider (digital) food market harnessed to cook? 4) Who is cooking in this context: human or machine, woman or man...?The proposed project will study everyday domestic cooking within its larger techno-scientific field. First, this field will be located in its historical and social context. Through in-depth ethnographic research with cooks, both at home and online, Cyborg Cook will, second, provide an urgently needed empirical account of the use of digital technology in cooking. Third, with digital technologies domestic cooks have become key actors in reconfiguring the wider food market, and their digital practices of connecting food production and consumption through cooking warrant scholarly attention. Finally, to challenge gendered, classed or raced assumptions about who the cook is or ought to be, the cook will be considered as a cyborg – part human, part machine: a more-than-human agent flexibly combining and adapting its bodily and digital knowledge to prepare.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Gisela Welz, Ph.D.